I am senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News. I write about energy and environment issues, frequently focusing on global warming. I have presented environmental analysis on CNN, CNN Headline News, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and several national radio programs. My environmental analysis has been published in virtually every major newspaper in the United States. I studied atmospheric science and majored in government at Dartmouth College. I obtained my Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University.

As Carbon Dioxide Levels Continue To Rise, Global Temperatures Are Not Following Suit

New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are continuing to rise but global temperatures are not following suit. The new data undercut assertions that atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing a global warming crisis.

NOAA data show atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose 2.67 parts per million in 2012, to 395 ppm. The jump was the second highest since 1959, when scientists began measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Global temperatures are essentially the same today as they were in 1995, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were merely 360 ppm. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose 10 percent between 1995 and 2012, yet global temperatures did not rise at all. Global warming activists are having a difficult time explaining the ongoing disconnect between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures.

This isn’t the first time in recent years that global temperatures have disobeyed the models presented by global warming activists. From the mid-1940s through the mid-1970s, global temperatures endured a 30-year decline even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose nearly 10 percent. From 1900 through 1945, by contrast, global temperatures rose rapidly despite a lack of coal power plants, SUV’s, and substantial carbon dioxide emissions.

Remarkably, global warming activists are spinning the ongoing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, along with the ongoing lack of global temperature rise, as evidence that we are facing an even worse global warming crisis than they have been predicting.

“The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air jumped dramatically in 2012, making it very unlikely that global warming can be limited to another 2 degrees as many global leaders have hoped,” the Associated Press reported yesterday.

Actually, the fact that temperatures remain flat even as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise is a devastating rebuke to assertions that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are causing a global warming crisis.

On a related front, the NOAA data amplify the futility of imposing costly carbon dioxide restrictions on the U.S. economy in the name of fighting global warming. U.S. carbon dioxide emissions declined 10 percent during the past decade, yet global emissions rose by more than 30 percent.

Regardless of the future pace of ongoing reductions in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, global carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise. Even if the United States committed economic suicide by imposing all or most of the carbon dioxide restrictions advocated by global warming activists, the ensuing U.S. carbon dioxide reductions would amount to merely a drop in the bucket compared to the flood of emissions increases by the world as a whole and by developing nations such as China and India in particular.

Fortunately, as the new NOAA data show, and as global warming ‘skeptics’ have observed all along, rising carbon dioxide emissions are having only a modest impact on global temperatures and are not creating a global warming crisis.

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Do you understand lag times? CO2 and temperature are like printing money and inflation. It is not a question of IF, but HOW SOON. Looking back at hundreds of thousands of years of records shows the relationship quite clearly — see my blog post for a clear graphic chart http://www.johnenglander.net/t-co2-sl-420kyr-chart Furthermore, 40 million years of geologic record shows that the relationship between temperature and sea level is about 65 feet of SL rise for each degree C. The ocean and atmosphere are already 0.8 degrees C warmer than a century ago. That means that sea level will rise at least 50 feet once we reach the new equilibrium, though it could take several centuries. And that assumes no further warming. We are playing with something far more damaging, pernicious, and permanent here than inflation. We are melting the polar ice sheets, moving the shoreline inland, and burdening future generations with something quite unprecedented in human experience. For more explanation see my blog, or recent book, “High Tide On Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis”.

Global warming cannot be proven, theories are all we have…. I’ve read too many sides to this story. The earth has been here long before you and I, it will continue to self sustain itself. We, the virus, seem to spread and reek havoc with our wonderful idea’s like blowing up nukes in the atmosphere, testing aerosols amongst other things, burning forests/oil refineries, allowing polluted chemicals into our water via sewage.. C’mon man we have bigger fish to fry instead of the invisible “global warming theory”… To read some of these really nice put together statements from what seem to be educated people makes me laugh. Wow you paid for your education most likely and see what you argue about.. Didn’t learn much but were brain washed into believing this hype.

Carlos Lozano – The 2000s were .15 degC hotter than the 1990s which were .17 degrees hotter than the 1980s which were .17 deg hotter than the 1970s. That situation is, by definition, global warming. It has been proven to be happening by direct measurement.

BTW, find somebody in a scientific field and have him/her explain the meaning of “theory” to you.

“Global temperatures are essentially the same today as they were in 1995, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were merely 360 ppm. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose 10 percent between 1995 and 2012, yet global temperatures did not rise at all. ”

The pattern of global temperature follows global CO2 levels in every report I have ever seen. I am puzzled why you say that the temperature is not rising. 2012 was the hottest year since records were taken.

Your contention is an error. NCDC, NASA, and CRU all show a statistically significant warming trend, despite both a solar minima and increased volcanic activity. What’s more, paleoclimate indicators also indicate a consistent temperature rise. I’m not sure where your claim that there’s been no warming since 1995 is coming from, since all of the data indicates the contrary.

The fact that carbon dioxide traps heat in gaseous mixtures, and traps more heat as its concentration in such a mixture increases has been consistently experimentally demonstrated since the mid-19th century. What’s more, as F. Parrenin et al, demonstrated in their paper in Science earlier this month, the last major glacial melt was ALSO preceded by a significant rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

I suggest you consult your sources, as they appear to be leading you astray on two simple, experimentally demonstrated facts: 1) carbon dioxide traps heat and 2) there has been a statistically significant warming trend for the past several decades.

Do you have experimental evidence that demonstrates that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in a gaseous mixture doesn’t increase the heat absorption of that mixture? That would be a remarkable finding, as it would contradict over a century and a half of empirical evidence to the contrary. Not to mention that it would overturn a lot of what we know about chemical thermodynamics.

If you have such evidence, I highly suggest you submit your experimental findings for peer review and publication. It would be a game changer for chemistry and cause a lot of re-evaluation in the field.

@Alex: Forget about overturning 150 years of physics. The fact that the commenters here find it necessary to constantly engage in third-grade name calling tells us everything we need to know about their ability to write such a paper. Or to engage in adult thinking, for that matter.